Collateral Damage
by ackeberlynn
Summary: "Saving the world always resulted in collateral damage. Like his brother suddenly disappearing into thin air with a mentally unstable angel, just seconds after ramming a fossil through the neck of a Leviathan." Tag to 7x23. Sam's quest to find out what happened to his brother after the finale.


**Collateral Damage**

**Author's Note: **Wow, a huge, massive shout-out of thanks goes to _Sharlot_, my beta. I'd never used a beta before on any story, but was suffering from frustrating writer's block on this one. Without her inspiring suggestions, constructive criticism, and encouragement, this story would simply never have been posted. I cannot thank or praise her enough for her help. **  
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As always, reviews are coveted and treasured. I'd love to know your thoughts on this piece, as it's my first attempt at a Sam-centric story. Dean is scattered throughout, but this one's about Sam. It was a challenge I hope I rose to.

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing but the arrangement of words in this document (minus the quotes from the show). The only profits I receive from writing fanfiction are the words from the reviewers. This is just for kicks and grins (and the occasion gasp or tear).

**Warnings: **Spoilers up to and including 7x23. Minor language. Mature themes. You may want a tissue.

**Summary:** "Saving the world always resulted in collateral damage. Like his brother suddenly disappearing into thin air with a mentally unstable angel, just seconds after ramming a fossil through the neck of a Leviathan." Sam's quest to find out what happened to his brother after the finale. Tag to 7x23.

* * *

Sam's mind was in shambles as he sped away from Sucrocorp's headquarters, the heavy, smoldering smell of smoke clinging relentlessly to his clothes.

The Impala's windshield was scratched and cracked from Meg's head-on collision with the glass Sucrocorp sign, and the front of the car emitted an odd, continuous rattle. Sam knew he'd soon have to stop somewhere secluded to assess the damage.

It was a small relief to be sitting in the Impala again after months upon months of pretzeling his large frame into one tiny stolen vehicle after another. He could still smell the upholstery cleaner Dean had last used on the seats – just one whiff of the stuff had made him gag, and he'd given his brother hell for using it.

_"God, it smells like…turpentine!" Sam exploded after twenty minutes of trying to breathe through his mouth. "How can you stand that?"_

_Dean shrugged, barely taking his eyes off the road. "Doesn't bother me."_

_Sam just glared at him. "Maybe because the fumes killed off the rest of your brain cells."_

_"Or maybe you just have a sensitive nose," Dean shot back. "Look man, she was overdue for a good wipe-down. You gotta admit, that stuff did exactly what it was supposed to." His mouth quirked into a rakish grin. "I mean, these seats are about as supple as a lady's – "_

_"That's it, I'm cracking a window," Sam interrupted, reaching for the crank on the passenger door._

_"Hey, it just stopped raining – you'll get water on the seats!"_

_"Dude, you should be way more worried about __me chucking on these seats!__" Sam replied, barely suppressing another retch as he stuck his head out the open window. "That would __really__ ruin the leather and create a __whole new kind__ of smell in here."_

_Dean never complained about the open window after that. _

Malodorous or not, the Impala was home.

But home just wasn't _home_ without Dean.

His big brother should have been behind the wheel, bemoaning his decision to let Meg touch his baby and bitching about all the work he'd have to put into her, again. He should have been, but he wasn't. And Sam's chest knotted with the fear that he'd never hear that reassuringly abrasive tone again.

A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that the fire was growing, judging by the way the thick, black cloud seemed to eat more and more of the sky. The orange glow of flames was visible through the trees, and Sam could still hear the distant pops of small explosions coming from within the lab.

The sights and smells of the raging inferno had done nothing for his sanity, which remained fragile and tattered despite Cas's quick-fix. He still grappled with memories from his time in the Pit, no matter how vague or distant they had become in his mind.

_"It's alright; it's getting better. I just wish it wasn't like the damn tape from 'The Ring.' I mean, I feel like I'm okay because I passed on the crazy."_

The 'healing,' or whatever it was, happened so fast that it had left Sam reeling. Days after his recovery, he was still digging for answers, and Dean had gotten irritated with his constant badgering.

_"Jesus Sam, for the last time: I don't know!"_

_Sam remained unfazed by his brother's display of temper. "But he had to have said something, Dean - anything. I mean…how do you just 'shift' crazy?"_

_"He's an angel; he can do a ton of crap that doesn't make sense to us. Look, the important thing is that he fixed your melon. __I mean seriously__, why are we looking the horse in the face, here?"_

_"Because," Sam calmly replied. "I need to understand what happened. __And because r__egardless of the mistakes he's made, he's our friend, and we just left him back at that hospital like it was nothing – "_

_"Oh, come on," Dean retorted with an exasperated scoff. "Friend? He almost killed you, Sam! Broke that wall down like it was nothing. I'm telling you, if he's our friend then we don't __need enemies."_

_Sam shook his head. "You __know__ it's more complicated than that."_

_"Actually, I think it's pretty simple," Dean replied defiantly._

_Sam realized his brother wouldn't be swayed on that particular subject. But there was still something important to discuss._

_"He didn't take my memories," he abruptly stated, figuring – correctly – that the direct approach would be the most effective way to get Dean's attention. _

_"Excuse me?" _

_Sam shrugged. "I remember Hell still, it's just… memories."_

_"What are you getting at?" _

_"My hallucinations weren't based on my memories from the Cage," Sam slowly explained. "Not all of them, anyway. They weren't influenced, or driven, by those memories. I think that's why it was so hard for me to tell what was real. It was almost like…"_

_"Like what?" Dean's voice was sharp. _

_Sam sighed. "Like there was some sort of…connection? I don't know how to explain it. But when I was seeing Lucifer, it was like he was…interacting with my daily life. You know, something different every time – stuff my mind couldn't think up on its own."_

_"So…what's your point?"_

_"My point is, if the hallucinations were generated from my own psyche – Cas wouldn't have been able to just shift that into himself, not without taking all my memories from Hell. And he didn't. So it was something else."_

_Dean blinked. "What else could it have been?"_

_"Well, it's just a theory but…you know how angels are linked to their vessels?"_

_Dean nodded slowly. "Yeah, Cas said it was like an open phone line." _

_"Right. Well, I think that my soul was still linked to Lucifer when it got pulled out of the Cage."_

_The look on Dean's face shifted quickly from realization to horror to pity to guilt. "So you're saying…it wasn't just hallucinations? You weren't crazy; Lucifer was actually riding your wave that whole time?" _

_Sam grimaced. "Something like that. And maybe Cas absorbed the link, or shifted it, or whatever."_

_Dean rubbed a hand over his face, then got up to pour them both a drink. _

_"Holy crap, Sam."_

_"Yeah."_

Sam was brought back to the present as the unmistakable din of sirens reached his ears. He couldn't help but think of the firefighters that would be risking their lives to extinguish his work of arson, and blew out a loud breath of air. Every decision had its consequences. And Sam knew better than anyone – there was no such thing as an easy choice for a hunter.

Every victory came at a price.

Saving the world always resulted in collateral damage. Like his brother suddenly disappearing into thin air with a mentally unstable angel, just seconds after ramming a fossil through the neck of a Leviathan. Like Kevin, just a kid in advanced placement turned unwilling prophet of God, now in the clutches of Hell's most crafty demon.

And while he didn't understand exactly what had happened to his brother, or Cas, or the kid – he didn't know anything, really - he squared his jaw with a familiar, weary determination.

The answers were out there, Sam just had to find them.

He refused to give up hope.

* * *

Eighty miles outside of town, Sam rented a seedy motel room. He paid cash, because even forged credit cards could be traced, and he knew the Leviathans were still out there, possibly plotting revenge for the death of their leader.

Immediately after unpacking his bags and locking the door, he drew a devil's trap on the dusty floor and summoned Crowley, white-knuckling the demon-killing knife in his right fist.

The familiar stench of stale, rotted air and a faint whiff of sulfur – Hell's signature call-sign – assaulted Sam's nose seconds before the dapper demon appeared.

"You know, I'm really getting tired of this," the Crowley stated, casually plucking a loose string from the cuff of his suit. Taking note of his surroundings, he fixed Sam with a derisive glare. "I swear, every time you summon me it's someplace more cockroach-infested than the last. You know, _Hades_ has better accommodations than the kind of squalid slums you vagrants stay in."

"Where's Dean?" It wasn't a question.

"Wasting no time on pleasantries, I see," Crowley simpered. "However as I recall, we've already had this conversation."

Sam seethed. "You said Dick was dead. You know what happened to him; then you know what happened to Dean. And Cas."

"You know, for a supposedly intelligent young man, you assume an awful lot. And you know what they say about assuming, right?" His inflection rose in playful mischievousness. "It makes an _ass_ out of you and me…but mostly you."

"Last chance to start talking," Sam brusquely warned, lifting the knife higher.

"You really think I'm afraid of a slow-witted lumberjack with a toothpick?" Crowley replied, eyeing Sam with ultimate disdain. "Please. If I didn't find pitying you so entertaining you'd be dead already." He paused, watching in unabashed amusement as a small vein became visible on the hunter's forehead, his left cheek twitching with repressed emotion.

"I already told you, that bone had a kick to it. Imagine the shockwave from a man-made nuclear warhead and apply it to a heavenly weapon. You get the pretty picture, I'm sure."

Sam's stomach dropped, but he held onto his composure.

"Are you saying…they're dead?"

The corners of Crowley's mouth quirked up in a sardonic grin. "Dead? More likely _disintegrated_, their atomic bits blown half to kingdom come."

"No," Sam shook his head in denial. "I don't believe that."

The demon shrugged. "Believe it or don't believe it, I can't be bothered to give a damn."

Sam shook with rage. "I oughtta kill you. You had this whole thing set up just how you wanted it!"

"Your confidence is a stroke to my ego, Sam. I feel a bit flushed." Crowley mocked with a smirk. "On second thought, I'm a little disappointed that you'd expect anything less from me."

"You're not leaving here until I get some answers," Sam threatened.

Crowley feigned an insulted look. "You know, I just helped you two imbeciles save the sodding world – again! – and this is how you repay me? You Winchesters have no integrity."

Sam took a menacing stride forward.

"Ah-ah…take another step and you're dog meat."

The demon snapped his fingers and Sam froze, feeling a rush of sour-smelling air and hearing the unmistakable growl of a hell-hound just off Crowley's left.

"You should really consider another line of work, Sam," the demon lectured smugly, reaching out to pat the hell-hound's head. "I mean, you just don't seem to have the stomach for this business, anymore. Getting maudlin about a little collateral damage? A bit persnickety, if you ask me."

Wordless and fuming, Sam bent down and scraped a line in the outer circle of the devil's trap.

Crowley stepped out, adjusting his suit jacket. "Oh – one more thing. I think I've been more than patient with your antics. The next time you summon me, you'll find out just what happens when I let the dog off the leash. Are we clear?"

Sam blinked as Crowley vanished from sight, the hell-hound gone with him.

He stood in place for a long time afterward, his mind incapable of processing the likelihood that this time, his brother might be truly and forever gone.

* * *

Sam woke the next morning with renewed purpose. He needed to research.

At least three boxes of books and ancient texts, part of their inheritance from Bobby, were packed in the Impala's trunk. Sam started there.

Vanishing Humans.

Exploding Monsters.

The Effects of God-Weapons.

The less he found, the more frantic he grew. He made the thirty-hour drive to Whitefish Montana in twenty-four, stuffing the Impala with the rest of Bobby's boxes and crates. Then he turned around and took it all back to Wisconsin, desperate to be near the place of his brother's disappearance.

One evening, he received an unexpected call from Garth. Sam answered reluctantly, a sigh escaping his lips in place of a greeting.

"Hey bro, where's Dean? I haven't been able to reach him on his cell."

Sam fumbled. "He uh…he's not here. Sorry, Garth."

"No problem-o friend, I was just wondering if you guys were up for a little vaca-y. My second cousin has a couple houses in Fort Lauderdale, right on the beach. I helped him with a little ghost problem a few months back and he's letting me stay there for free. So I'm taking my special lady down there in few weeks and figured I'd invite you guys, too."

Sam was only half-listening to the kooky hunter, wearily rubbing his throbbing temple as the wiry man chattered energetically into his ear.

"That's uh…that's nice, Garth. Really. But I've got a little situation, here."

And, because Garth insisted, Sam told him what had happened.

The other hunter immediately expressed a willingness to help, and began asking earnest questions about Dean's disappearance. Sam responded with tired but detailed answers, initially irritated by the serious enthusiasm in Garth's voice. But after a few minutes it hit him: Garth actually, genuinely _cared_ about Dean, enough to ask questions and posit theories, no matter how far-flung or irrelevant. Sam's irritation melted quickly into a resigned gratitude.

"Hey, maybe Dean got sucked into Purgatory," the other man suggested suddenly.

As soon as the casual words registered, Sam jerked his fingers back from where they'd been pinching the skin between his eyes and sat up straighter in his seat.

"What? Why do you say that?"

"Well, usually when you kill a monster, their soul goes to Purgatory, right? But the body is still around. You said there wasn't a body. Dick just disappeared."

"More like he exploded…or imploded…but, yeah," Sam replied with a wince. "So…?"

"So did anything funky happen before he exploded, er – imploded?"

"Uh…yeah, actually." Sam squinted, remembering. "There was this...energy. Like the air was, I don't know, pulsating."

"Huh. Well maybe this God-bone did more than kill Dick – maybe it opened up some kind of portal to Monsterland."

Sam's brain felt like sludge from days of sleepless worry and frantic research. "What?"

Garth spoke slowly, as if sensing Sam's exhaustion.

"If this God-bone opened up a portal that sucked Dick into Purgatory - maybe it sucked in Dean and your angel friend, too."

Sam blinked a few times, then frowned. "That actually makes sense."

"It's better than the alternative," Garth somberly replied.

"Yeah…yeah," Sam muttered. "Thanks, Garth."

Sam hung up and began researching portals and doorways to Purgatory. Only, the more he learned, the more discouraged he grew.

Bobby's description of Purgatory haunted him: "_It's like the backbone of your worst nightmare – all blood and bone and darkness; filled with the bodies and souls of all things hungry, sharp, and nasty."_

Assuming his brother had _not_ been killed by the kick from the God-bone, Dean was stuck in a place filled with the souls of blood-thirsty monsters – most, if not all of which had died at the hands of hunters. Sam hoped against hope that Cas was with him, and that the angel had enough sense and mojo to watch Dean's back. Again…assuming Garth's theory was correct…assuming they were even alive.

But more troubling than the thought of his brother being stuck in such a place, was the dilemma of finding him and getting him out. Sam couldn't in good conscience open the door to Purgatory – the last time they had done so, the Leviathans had gotten free and nearly turned the human race into a cattle herd. He had to find another, safer way.

But the options were few.

He briefly considered summoning Death to save his brother, but there would undoubtedly be a price, and Sam had nothing with which to bargain.

He wouldn't be making any deals, either; not that any demon would take the wager. He and Dean had agreed on that, though it was a promise easier made than kept. But Sam understood now, as painful as it was, that each reckless, self-sacrificing attempt to save each other only played into the enemy's hands. It wasn't that they couldn't look out for one another, but the temptation to manipulate the supernatural was too costly. And they lost, in some major way, every single time.

Still, Sam had to keep believing that there was a way.

He began searching for a spell, one powerful enough to pull someone – body _and_ soul - out of Purgatory. But he quickly realized that such major-league summoning enchantments required a lot of dark energy – charring the bone of an infant, bleeding an innocent dry, scarring one's vessel by committing an unspeakable act. Sam couldn't – wouldn't – do that. There was a time, years ago, when he might have considered it a necessary evil. Whatever it took to get the job done, to save the world, his brother, himself.

But his soul had been bludgeoned and marred enough.

So he hunted for something else, anything else. What he couldn't understand from Bobby's lore, he took to a professor at the local college to interpret.

When his rummagings failed to divulge the answers he sought, he pursued the search at local libraries and internet search engines.

When he wasn't expending almost every waking hour of three weeks submerged in the dusty, yellowed pages of books, his laptop nearly crashed from the swamping onslaught to its hard-drive; Sam was on the phone with other hunters, wearing a hole into the rug with his frenetic pacing. He mined every contact in Bobby's address book, and extracted even the most irrelevant information from every name listed in his father's journal.

Some hunters still refused to talk to the guy who'd been rumored to have started the apocalypse – never mind that he and Dean had saved the world more than once. He even received death threats, which, coming from hunters, were more like promises. By the end of his campaign, he had a short list of half-baked theories written on a coffee-stained motel pad. But none made sense. Not really.

He'd found nothing.

Nothing, except that his increasingly futile quest reopened the still-healing wound of losing Bobby. A fresh, cold pang settled near the slowly metastasizing fear in his heart. If Bobby were around, at least, he wouldn't be alone.

It hit him one night, finally, that there was not going to be a last minute save this time.

He'd been rarely sleeping and subsisting on triple-red-eyes and protein shakes for fifteen days, and by the end of it he felt just a few hallucinations short of checking himself back into that psyche ward. The growing horror of his reality, mixed with the utter isolation, were overwhelming. And when he could take no more, Sam made a desperate, stricken, 3 a.m. dial to an old friend.

"This'd better be good…" A groggy, irritated voice answered on the fifth ring.

Sam pinched his eyes shut at the sound of the familiar, sassy tone, and tried in vain to keep his voice light.

"Uh…Sheriff Mills?"

"Sam?" Her voice rose with sudden awareness, recognition, and surprise.

"Yeah." Sam rubbed his forehead, kneading the space between his brows.

He was so exhausted.

"Sam? What's wrong? Are you alright?"

He could hear soft rustling of covers, and knew she was getting out of bed. For him. At this hour.

What he intended as a chuckle came out sounding like a guttural sob.

"I'm…I'm okay."

"Don't you lie to me, Sam Winchester," she threatened good-naturedly. But there was no masking the naked concern in her voice. "A call this early in the morning from someone in your line of work usually means the world's coming to an end."

Sam was struck by just how accurate she was.

"I just…" he fumbled. "I just needed someone to talk to, I guess."

There was a pause, then, softly: "Sam…is Dean okay?"

He sucked in a breath, momentarily rendered speechless by her intuition.

"Sam?"

And, because he had to say something, but couldn't say everything, Sam told her the truth.

"He's gone."

Saying it out loud, for the first time made it real.

He'd been fighting against this inevitable tide for weeks, gradually weakening with every dead end and false lead. It was only now, in this quiet moment, that he faced himself – faced the truth. And his surrender was as complete as it was abrupt. He let his arms fall, stopped kicking, and let the depths take him.

There was silence on the other end of the line, then, "Sam, where are you?"

Her voice only shook a little, and he admired her stoicism because he knew it was for him. She was like an anchor in that moment, and he clung to her, gained strength from her voice.

He also knew what she was asking, and tried to cut her off at the pass.

"Look Sheriff, you don't have to– "

"Nonsense. Tomorrow's Sunday, so I have off. And I have vacation days I need to use up."

She didn't ask what happened or how. She didn't need any details.

She was one of the last people left on earth who actually gave a damn about them. And Sam's eyes moistened at her willingness to drop everything for him. He would've given anything to not be alone.

But he couldn't pull her into this life. Dean was gone, and Sam suddenly realized he couldn't do this anymore. He couldn't watch another loved one die.

It would obliterate him.

"I have to go," he said quietly.

It was a goodbye, in every sense of the word.

"Sam, wait," her voice rose in compassion and fear. "Please. Whatever it is, let me help."

"There's nothing you can do." A beat. "There's nothing anyone can do."

And saying it unmoored the last vestige of hope from deep within him.

"You shouldn't be alone," she said.

He took a second to ponder the truth of that statement; the unfairness of his life. And a pall of anguish overtook him.

He shuddered, letting out a breathy moan of despair.

The older woman must have heard it, for her next words were tremulous and hoarse.

"Sam…I'm so sorry."

Sam took a deep breath.

"Listen Jodi…thanks. For being there. For everything."

"Oh, please don't hang up like this – I'll never get back to sleep."

His lips quirked up a bit. "Take care of yourself, okay?"

"Only if you promise to do the same," she countered quickly.

"I'll do what I can," he answered honestly.

His eyes shut against the memory of the same words, sounding like a death omen, coming from his brother's mouth months ago.

_"Just...don't get killed."_

_"I'll do what I can."_

_"What's that supposed to mean?"_

_"Means I'll do what I can, an' you can shut-up about it."_

He hung up the phone and scrubbed a hand over his face.

Dean was dead, he concluded. His big brother was dead, and he didn't even have a body to burn.

"What am I supposed to do?" He whispered.

Nothing answered but the thunderous quiet.

* * *

It was 4 a.m., and Sam sat next to the window, staring at the loaded Smith & Wesson handgun sitting atop the rickety motel table.

His eyes were bloodshot, red-rimmed, and hollowed out.

There were no tears shed with this kind of grief. There was just pain. Unspeakable, relentless, soul-crushing, agony.

Sam traced an idle finger down the pistol's grip.

He thought about his life. He thought about his brother, everything he'd given, everything he'd suffered. He thought about Bobby's final words and the last lesson the man had bestowed upon his surrogate sons.

_"When it's your time – go."_

How could he just let his brother go?

Dean would want him to keep fighting, he thought.

But Sam knew he had nothing more to give. Pile over one-hundred years of abject torment on top of eight years of almost non-stop war against evil. He was burnt out. Empty. Husked.

_"…what you're doing…it's not gonna save me. It's only gonna kill you."_

_"What m'I supposed to do?"_

_"Keep fighting. Take care of my wheels. Sam, remember what dad taught you, okay? And remember what I taught you." _

John Winchester had been dead for years. His life had been a lesson in survival and vengeance. But Dean…Dean was the one who had taught him how to _live_.

Even before the wall broke; Dean had always been Sam's stone number one.

Yet even Dean had faltered this past year. The personal losses had mounted, and Sam had watched his big brother slowly crack under the pressure of being strong for both of them.

_"You know, Bobby was right. Your head's not in it, man. When Cas died, you were wobbly, but now…."_

_"Now what?" Dean demanded, offended. "Oh what, you're dealing with it so perfect? Yeah – newsflash, pal – you're just as screwed up as I am. You're just…bigger." _

Ever since he had gotten his soul back, Dean had used Sam's new mental trauma as a way to minimize and distract from his own pain. They were both screwed up, majorly. But Dean would rarely open up to Sam. He seemed to operate under some twisted belief that because Sam had been in Hell longer, Dean's struggles were somehow less important. It had never really bothered Sam before, because he knew Dean would go to Bobby with his troubles. But after Bobby died, he'd watched as Dean drank himself into functional alcoholism, froze up on hunts, and allowed his physical and mental health deteriorate from lack of sleep and the effort of holding all that pain inside.

_"You shove it down, and you let it come out in-in spurts of violence and alcoholism." _

He'd tried so hard to not worry his brother, to not place any more burdens on his already-strained shoulders. To prove that he could handle it. "It" being their life - everything. He'd taken over most of the mundane daily tasks – making sure they both ate and slept, keeping up on the laundry, taking over the brunt of the research on non-Leviathan hunts. It was his way of taking care of his brother, a few of the small ways Dean would _let_ him. And it had helped keep his own mind occupied.

Except now, there was no one to care for, no one to worry about.

His brother's long ago prophecy, spoken through the mouth of a skinwalker, suddenly came to mind. _"Sooner or later everybody's gonna leave me."_

Funny how Sam was the one who got left.

He stroked a gentle finger down the barrel of the gun.

How could he go on? What was left for him?

He was suddenly confronted with the realization of how much he'd changed over the years. He wasn't the same man he was before he jumped into that bottomless hole in the ground.

He remembered how it was after Dean got back from Hell, how he couldn't understand the ways his brother had been subtly but permanently changed, how he'd seemed weaker, broken. It hadn't been until his own attempt at living topside after the horrors of the Pit that he understood. Now he only wished he could find the words to express how wrong he'd been.

After all they had done and seen, they were surprisingly still human. Survivors of a literal Hell. Experiencing that kind of soul-violating, other-worldly torment did something irrevocable to both of them; made everything harder – thinking, feeling, sleeping – everything. And now there was not a single person left on the face of the earth that had the capacity to empathize with what he'd been through. Not one.

Sam picked up the weapon, weighing it in his hands.

He knew he couldn't hunt anymore. Not without Dean. Doing so would just eat away what was left of his humanity – a more subtle form of suicide. And he knew he couldn't continue this, this aimless, roving, rootless quest for an answer that couldn't be found. He couldn't go on this way. It had to end.

There was only one thing left for him to do.

Sam's thumb brushed lightly over the gun's hammer before he quietly stood and slipped the weapon into the back waistband of his jeans.

The decision made, he meticulously packed his bags and hit the road.

* * *

Bent on one knee, close to the earth, Sam took in the scent of wet grass and the sounds of birds chirping in the trees.

How strange that life remained, even after death.

He just sat in the grass quietly for a moment, strangely comforted by the feeling of nearness to his family in a place that embodied the opposite. He fixed his eyes somewhere beyond his mother's gravestone and imagined that she was listening somehow, his father too. Like Sam had brought his brother home, and they were having some sort of family meeting. Sam didn't mind, though. This had been a family affair since the beginning.

Pulling a familiar object out of his pocket, he held it with reverence, absorbing its weight and the imprints it made in his palm.

He had always been the more openly sentimental one. Unlike his big brother, Sam had always appreciated the quiet symbolism of placing flowers at a loved one's grave, reflecting on that person's life and legacy and grappling with the bigger existential questions.

And so, it felt right to be here now, the representation of his love for his brother pressed into his warm hand, its cord of devotion dangling from between his fingers.

"Bet you never knew I kept this," he said softly through a broken grin.

"I always thought I'd give it back, eventually. I guess it was kind of a symbol for me. Of hope. That someday we'd be okay again."

He sucked in his trembling lips, but couldn't stop the descent of salty tears.

"You can't be gone now, Dean…." he whispered. "We were just starting to be brothers again."

Sam slowly rolled the brass object in his fingers, grounding himself as his thoughts wandered.

"I don't know whether you'd want me to keep fighting or not. I mean, these last few years, you've been pretty tired. And I could never tell you but…I've been tired too. For a long time, actually." He paused, letting out a huff of air before continuing.

"I thought when this whole Leviathan thing was over I could talk you into taking an extended vacation. Maybe go to the Grand Canyon. I know you never got to see it."

He cleared his throat, struggling with the emotions.

"Man, I hope you're up at the Harvelle's right now…I hope you found mom and dad."

_'I hope you're not stuck somewhere horrible, where I can't get to you,'_ he didn't say.

"I hope maybe…you found some peace." He nodded to himself, eyes watering. "You deserve it. No matter what you think – you deserve it more than anyone."

"I packed up all our stuff and put it in storage…everything except for the Impala." He tried to smile, but failed. "I'll take good care of her, don't worry."

Sam bit his lip. "We're retiring. For good."

"I think…I think you'd understand."

He rose to his knees for a moment, then pulled a small spade out of his pocket. Next to the spot where he'd buried his father's dog-tags seemingly a lifetime ago, he dug a shallow hole.

And there, next to his mother's headstone, he buried the last of his family.

When he stood up, tears dried, he felt hollow, but resolute.

He wasn't running away from this life, but walking toward a new one. And he would carry the scars and the memories with him always, buried deep inside.

He hadn't asked for this – had never expected in his wildest nightmares that he would have to face this moment. But here he was.

And he would accept whatever this new life offered, for however long it lasted.

Until he could see his family again.

_The End._

* * *

**A/N:** Thoughts? Please share.


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